Tested! Garrett Advancing Motion Upgraded Intercooler for the EcoBoost Mustang

Our test Mustang was already outfitted with an upgraded HPS EcoBoost Mustang charge pipe kit and HPS Cold Air Intake which also includes their own heavy duty high-temp reinforced silicone couplers and stainless steel T-Bolt clamps. The wire you see above is from one of the thermocouples we placed right at the inlet of the intercooler.

We slipped another ribbon thermocouple under the HPS coupler for the throttle body to see the intake temperature after the intercooler as the engine sees it.

We plugged the thermocouples into an Omega RDXL4SD 4 channel digital datalogging thermometer so we could record the intercooler inlet and outlet temperatures.

We also used a Fluke Ti450 thermal imager to look at the temperature distribution across the core during dyno pulls. This will help us observe heat saturation and the performance of the intercooler in real time. For as advanced as the Ti450 is, it is surprisingly easy to use. You just point the thermal imager at what you want to measure and a built-in laser distance meter calculates the distance to your designated target with pinpoint accuracy (the laser distance meter can calculate distances up to 100 feet) and displays the distance on the image. The Ti450 also has a video camera which we’ll use to document key points during the test.

With a temperature measurement range from -4 F to 2,192 F, the Fluke Ti450 was perfect for our testing needs. We’ve always been fans of Fluke’s line of thermal imagers, because there is so much you can do with them. Just take a look at our review of the Fluke Ti32 where we used it on a number of different automotive/motorsport applications.